FirstEnergy talks bankruptcy and need for bailout of its nuclear plants

[bananas]

Source: Crain's Cleveland Business

FirstEnergy Corp. executives used two words a lot when discussing the company's financial position and its plans to exit the nuclear power business when they spoke with analysts Wednesday, Feb. 22: "bankruptcy" and "billions."

The Akron-based company might be working to position itself for better treatment from state legislators — from which FirstEnergy hopes to secure ratepayer-funded relief for its nuclear plants near Dayton and Toledo — but it made clear that the stakes are high and even bigger than FirstEnergy itself. None of the analysts questioned the company's sincerity or used the other "b" word: bluffing.

First, came the billions. FirstEnergy reported it lost $6.2 billion, or $14.49 per share, in 2016. That's down from positive earnings of $578 million, or $1.37 per share, in 2015.

Yet, FirstEnergy CEO Chuck Jones began the call with analysts by saying, "2016 was a successful and transformative year for FirstEnergy."

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Read more: http://www.crainscleveland.com/article/20170222/NEWS/170229921/firstenergy-talks-bankruptcy-and-need-for-bailout-of-its-nuclear

[bananas]

1. FirstEnergy Corp. to sell or close its nuclear power plants

http://www.cleveland.com/business/index.ssf/2017/02/firstenergy_corp_to_sell_or_cl.html

FirstEnergy Corp. to sell or close its nuclear power plants

By John Funk, The Plain Dealer
on February 22, 2017 at 2:51 PM, updated February 22, 2017 at 9:56 PM

AKRON, Ohio -- FirstEnergy made it clear Wednesday that it is leaving the competitive power plant business, closing or selling all of its plants, including its nuclear plants, by the middle of next year.

The sale of the nuclear plants to another company would have little immediate impact on customer bills.

Closing the plants, which would probably take several years, would also have little impact on customer bills or power supplies.

Here's why:

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[msongs]

2. no bailouts for the nuclear waste industry. can we store the waste in Jones' basement? nt

[Cryptoad]

3. hmmmm,,,,,

reckon Trumps owns stocks in this Company?

[burrowowl]

4. Hell yes NO BAILOUTS!

and new nuke plants should not be approved as being 'Green'

[NNadir]

7. Well, we store dangerous fossil fuel waste in the atmosphere and people's lungs.

We kill seven million people per year with dangerous fossil fuel and dangerous biomass waste.

We've killed no one, absolutely no one, with so called "nuclear waste" storage.

This is reported in the comprehensive report on the causes of all human mortality assembled by a large international team of health scientists, epidemiologists, and physicians.

A comparative risk assessment of burden of disease and injury attributable to 67 risk factors and risk factor clusters in 21 regions, 1990–2010: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010 Lancet 2012, 380, 2224–60: For air pollution mortality figures see Table 3, page 2238 and the text on page 2240.

No where in this comprehensive list of all causes of mortality does the storage of so called "nuclear waste" come up, not that science has ever prevented dumb paranoid people from carrying on mindlessly about "nuclear waste" while remaining disinterested in waste that actually kills people.

Since so called "nuclear waste" - a resource for a future generations less stupid than ours - hasn't killed anyone in the last half a century of storage, it really doesn't matter where we keep it.

Could spent nuclear fuel be considered as a non-conventional mine of critical raw materials?

Whoever owns used nuclear fuel in the future will be wealthy.

Since the first nuclear reactor was constructed more than half a century ago, hundreds of millions of human beings have died from dangerous fossil fuel waste, and it's quite possible that this death rate will accelerate by orders of magnitude from dangerous climate change, another subject about which anti-nukes with their stupid obsessions couldn't care less about. About two million lives that would have been lost to air pollution were saved by nuclear operations; hundreds of millions more might have been saved were it not for the insistent anti-nuke stupidity and selective attention.

The electricity business in the United States is dominated by the idiotic idea that dangerous natural gas is "cheap." It is only "cheap" because it's permitted to dump its waste directly into the planetary atmosphere, and leave the radioactive fracking flow back water in places like the Reading Pronge for future generations to clean up. The fucking reactionary "free marketeers" in the anti-nuke industry don't give a fuck about future generations, which is why they stupidly complain about nuclear economics.

In less than 20 years, a previous generation less stupid than ours, built more than 100 nuclear reactors in this country, using technology developed in the 1950's and 1960's, saving hundreds of thousands of lives that would have otherwise been lost to air pollution while providing the lowest electricity rates on this planet.

This generation - too stupid for words - came up with the idea that fracking was "cheaper" so that dumb people could run computers all night long to complain about Fukushima, which at the end of the day will not kill as many people as will die in the next four hours of air pollution.

Maybe they think Jesus will come back and clean up their mess, I don't know.

This decision was a crime against all future generations.

Have a nice day tomorrow.

[jpak]

12. Nucuclar power still sucks

yup

[Crash2Parties]

5. Someday, people will have to actually deal with the waste. It will not be cheap.

I know! Let's just push it off to the future! By then surely someone will have figured out the solution!

[NNadir]

8. Maybe YOU think dealing with climate change will be cheap.

As noted in my post above and the scientific reference therein, air pollution kills seven million people every year; it is dangerous fossil fuel waste and dangerous combustion biomass waste.

Maybe you think that's "cheap" compared to the relatively trivial problem of containing used nuclear fuel.

The selective attention of the scientifically illiterate anti-nuke gas bags is not actually very cheap at all. In fact, it has completely destroyed the future.

[Tikki]

6. Too bad FirstEnergy...the scam is playing itself to an end.

Let's keep the pressure on this out of date industry....

Tikki

[modrepub]

9. On the PJM Electric Grid

Nuclear is not competitive with other electricity producers. I have heard TMI was putting in bids "at cost" and crossing their fingers they would be accepted. A NJ plant is slated for closure. You will hear more of this if combined cycle gas plants continue to be built and gas prices remain low. Oh, and pay attention to how may utility companies try to reverse deregulated electric market states.

[ArizonaLib]

10. Really?

Yet, FirstEnergy CEO Chuck Jones began the call with analysts by saying, "2016 was a successful and transformative year for FirstEnergy."


Here's how:
If they had a loss of $6.2 billion in 2016 after a $9.2 billion write down of assets, then they surely had a $3 billion operating PROFIT. This means, by faking financial distress, a bankruptcy can allow them to blow off pensions, other debt, etc. and unload the nuke plants and waste it is responsible for. The article goes on to describe how the company will move forward as solely part of the grid monopoly which is 'regulated' (regulated monopoly?) which distributes energy.

[muriel_volestrangler]

11. It's the Trump method of business - set up subsidaries, and take the profit from them

when they're profitable; when they fail, let them go bankrupt, owing money to the banks. The central company or person is untouched - profits in the good times, no debts when it all goes wrong. Notice that it's just the coal and nuclear subsidiaries that are having bankruptcy mentioned.